Papa studies me for a beat. “Good.”
“Don’t mistake this for agreement.”
“I never mistake you for easy.”
Vika laughs under her breath. “That much is obvious.”
I ignore her. “What time?”
“Seven thirty,” Papa says. “There will be security.”
“There is always security.”
“Tonight more than usual.”
Papa gives me the kind of look that means I will get no useful answer. “It’s a large gathering.”
I don’t say anything, but I don’t like the sound of that. And I have a terrible feeling something bad is going to happen tonight.
14
ROMAN
I arrive last on purpose.
In my world, lateness is sometimes arrogance, sometimes strategy. Tonight, it’s both.
The venue sits on the edge of the river, all glass, black stone, and soft gold light, the kind of place built to look legitimate from the street and untouchable from the inside. Officially, tonight is a private foundation dinner. Unofficially, it’s a council gathering dressed in silk and good whiskey. Men will drink, smile, discuss shipping routes and import licenses and family obligations, and underneath all of it they will be measuring territory, loyalty, and weakness.
I organized it because someone had to.
For five years, I have stayed quieter than people expected. Not soft. Never soft. Just quieter. I expanded in the States, built money that did not need a surname to stand upright, let the Russians think I had lost interest in Moscow while I kept one eye on every man who mattered there. Some called it caution. Some called it exile. Some called it fear.
They were wrong.
I was waiting.
After Oleg betrayed me, waiting became necessary.
That old bastard came to me in Moscow with ledgers, names, and just enough truth to make himself useful. Then he sold part of the same information somewhere else, thinking he could balance both sides and live long enough to retire on it. Men like Oleg always believe they are smarter than the war they are feeding. Most of them die surprised.
I have not found him yet, but I will soon.
I step out of the car and the doors open before I reach them. Inside, the room shifts in exactly the way I expected. Heads turn. Voices lower. Men who were pretending not to watch the entrance stop pretending.
Good.Let them look.
A woman in diamonds touches the arm of the governor’s fixer and murmurs something. Two old Armenians near the bar straighten. A captain from Brighton Beach abandons his drink halfway to his mouth. Across the room, one of the Volkov brothers actually pales before rearranging his face into something polite.
My men peel away from me in practiced silence, taking up their positions near the exits, the stairs, the service corridor, the private rooms above. The orchestra in the corner keeps playing because they have been paid too well to notice danger unless someone bleeds on the cello.
“Roman.”
I turn.
Pavel Kurylenko approaches with his wife on his arm and the smile of a man who spent the afternoon deciding whether shaking my hand made him brave or stupid. He chooses brave.
“Pavel.”
